THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
Horror film-maker Mike Flanagan recounts the hurdles he had to clear with his first long-form TV drama
MIKE FLANAGAN HAS written and directed a run of hit horror movies from Oculus to Ouija: Origin Of Evil, but making his first-ever TV series for Netflix based on a revered haunted-house novel was something else entirely, a case of one fearsome test after another. Here he outlines the terrifying challenges he faced.
THE RUNNING TIME!
Flanagan’s films all clock in around the pithy 100-minute mark. Now he had to write and film a huge Netflix event series. “My initial thought was, ‘How could you possibly expand this story into ten hours when it worked so nicely as an hour and 45 minute film?”, says Flanagan, referring to the classic 1963 movie version. His solution? Broaden the cast of characters, turn them into one extended family, and tell their stories across two main timelines. “We decided to fold in mini-flashbacks as well,” adds Flanagan. “I think there are ten timelines in total!”
THE SCARES!
Making sure the series was consistently scary enough across its ten-episode story was a big concern. “That was one of the hardest elements about making this show,” says Flanagan. “We wanted to focus more on atmosphere and tension, and space out the scares more carefully.” That the show ended up at Netflix was a huge help, because they don’t have commercial breaks. “In one fell swoop they would have broken all the tension we were trying to build,” he explains.
THE SPIELBERG FACTOR!
Hovering over the series was the figure of Steven Spielberg, whose company Amblin was producing the show. “I was absolutely terrified and tongue-tied,” says Flanagan of his interactions with the great man. “He took a special interest in the series, reading the scripts and watching the episodes as we delivered them.” Referring to Spielberg’s involvement with Poltergeist, despite Tobe Hooper’s official directorial credit, Flanagan says, “Steven certainly knows his way round a family in a haunted house. I definitely had a worry that he might be over my shoulder comparing what I was doing and rolling his eyes! He was nothing but helpful, though”.
THE KITTENS!
Flanagan and his team faced one final fear. A key sub-plot revolves round… a basket of kittens. “Oh boy, were we worried they would not work because they looked so silly, explains Flanagan. There is indeed a comically overdone big-eyed fluffiness to these kittens. But that only makes what happens to them all the more chilling. They’re all part of Flanagan’s cunning design.